Gutka worth 15 lakh seized, 8 held in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The West Zone Task force police on Sunday apprehended eight persons who were indulged in illegal marketing of gutka.

The police seized noxious gutka packets of various brands worth about Rs 15 lakh, two auto trolleys and net cash of Rs 76,000 from the accused.

According to police, on credible information Task Force team raided on illegal marketing of tobacco products at Bapu ghat near Langar Houz and arrested main dealer Prakash with three sub-dealers G Niranjan, T Ravi and U Venu along with two drivers and two cleaners K Kande Rao, Basavaling, Shaik Zameer and Anil.

The accused persons G Niranjan, T Ravi and U Venu were running Kirana shops in their residence premises.

But their earnings are not sufficient to meet their expenses. As such they hatched a plan to supply banned gutka products, chewing tobacco on higher rates to earn illegally money.

About two months ago the accused G Niranjan and T Ravi came into contact with the accused Prakash who was a gutka material supplier from Bidar, Karnataka.

They asked him to supply banned gutka and tobacco products on lowest price. He agreed with them and started supplying gutka and tobacco products.

Later the accused were supplying the banned gutka and tobacco materials to different pan shop and other needy persons at higher price.

About one week back the accused persons ordered huge quantity of gutka and tobacco products to the main accused Prakash and informed him to deliver the material to Bapu ghat.

As per their instructions the accused loaded huge quantity of gutka and tobacco materials on Sunday then the task force team apprehended them along with gutka products and autos.

The arrested accused persons along with seized material were handed over to SHO, Langar Houz police station.